An Incidental Journey
by molten-salty
Summary: While Freeman, Calhoun, and Shephard are all squabbling with each others' shadows, a diversity hire with an overactive mind and a guard with an overactive finger are just trying to escape the facility without dying. [ON HIATUS, NOT CANCELLED. JUST NEED TO PLAY LIFE'S END AGAIN.]
1. Watches

_**Info on this:** This is based on the mod "Life's End" for Half-Life by kingdaniel. If you somehow see this, please don't cancel Time's End, I'd buy six copies. Readers (who most likely aren't kingdaniel), I really really really recommend playing the mod. It's free (if you have a copy of Half-Life, which is only $15 on Ebay anyway) so there's no downside to it._

 _I originally wrote this sometime in 2015, but just got around to posting this. As such, Chapter 2 will probably be fairly different as this was the only one I wrote back then. However, since this gives me an excuse to play LE again I'll take it._

 _Anyway, to the content you wanted to see._

* * *

Doctor Luther Johnson, Ph D, forty something year old, and unreliably weakest link in the entire Sector, didn't know when he fell asleep, just that he did. He reminded himself that people have watches for a very important reason, but it always slips his mind before he is ever actually able to follow through with the whole 'getting a watch' thing. But the good thing about waking up now was that the tram doors aren't open just yet, so he could make a mad dash for the door and maybe, possibly, just a thought, get to his office on time for once.

Luther calmly made his way to the door, black briefcase in hand and watch absent from wrist, and as soon as it opened wide enough, made an absolutely crazy dash to his office. He was hopping, passing by people, and otherwise doing everything possible to speed himself up.

Before he realised he was going the wrong way. These corridors all look the same. The trek back was a brief, shameful one as he could feel the glares of the rest of the sector, confounded that Black Mesa could ever hire this idiot.

But nonetheless, he talked to one scientist, a man named Stuart Clark. He was white skinned with black, slicked-back hair and a stern face.

"Have you lost your key again, Johnson?"

"Hello. No, Stuart, I've got it right here," he said, patting his pocket.

"Do you know who ate all the doughnuts?" Stuart patted his belly at the thought, he didn't get breakfast because of whoever that was.

"No, sorry. Ask Drummond. Well, I've got to go, sorry for holding you up."

And Luther slid his key card into the slot next to the door.

 _Ahem, key card. Door._

Luther's eyes trembled. He left his card in the cafeteria. He ran like crazy to get it, he had to, jumping over at least one scientist and another four trash cans. In the cafeteria, the last table had it, next to a janitor's keys. He was probably going to get fired soon, but since he still needed money, he decided maybe not take the risk, actually.

Then, once he was sure he had everything, he made his way back, paying no mind to the scientists greeting him. He was probably going to be fired when he got in there. There was only one really fast way to find out. A scanned keycard, a hop, skip, and a jump later, and his expectations were met.

* * *

In his office was Dr King, his boss. He was old, white haired, and had that "Einstein" look that seemed so popular with the scientists around here. And the look on his face of an unprecedented volume of rage.

It wasn't long before he opened his mouth, spittle coming out with every word, decibel levels following along with his face.

" _Look at me!_ " he screamed at Luther as he gathered his things. " _This is the fourteenth time you've been late by over an hour! Do you know what time it is?!_ "

Luther didn't have a watch. So he resorted to looking at Black Mesa's clock.

"8:54."

Luther was trembling now. This day didn't seem to be going right at all.

 _"8:54! Get your shit and get out, because you're fired!_ "

Luther went back to rounding up his things when he heard a noise that sounded an awful lot like a TARDIS. Was the Doctor really coming _here_ _ **?**_ He hoped that he wouldn't be here for _him,_ but there wouldn't be a reason for that. Unless he needed a new companion. Maybe he wants an actual scientist this time. Well, biology wasn't his field, but he could use a physicist, couldn't he? Or did he train to be a physician? Maybe they're filming a new series, the last one ended a decade and a half ago, didn't it? Wait, maybe he needs a calendar, too, he forgot what year it was.

What yea—

* * *

A more important question was: _what. Is. That?!_ An alien just burst into being, leaving a bit of green residue on the walls, and charged up a lightning attack, obviously trying to get Dr King through the trideca-paned windows.

He had no idea what that was supposed to mean either.

The alien was brown, covered in something halfway between skin and scales, and had six red eyes, each of which were segmented in quite the same way as an insect's eyes might have been. It also had green, metal shackles on its limbs and neck. Considering green wasn't anywhere else on its body, it was safe to assume they were artificial.

Shackles. Arms. Legs. The legs were hooved and spindly, and the arms—all three of them, must be easy to use three handguns like that—were clawed. It also had a bolt of lightning just come out of them without any burns or rubber feet. The shackles told Luther all he needed to know—its enslavement. Or that aliens had a different idea of fashion than humans. Really could be either.

Interesting.

Dr King was at this point cowering in the corner of his office, standing on a green growth thing that looked like a solid pile of dirt. The alien was clawing the window, trying to break it in and kill the white coat.

A quick-fingered security guard drew and fired three shots into the alien's head, killing it almost instantly. For once, he could say that killing the alien on sight was justified. Normally killing them immediately was just asking for the business end of a vaporising ray, but that alien was _already_ attacking. No qualms here.

Luther stepped out of the office, completely and utterly thingless, and made his way over to the body to gawk at it. " _Cool_ ," he said in a breathy voice, "it's an alien!"

That was before more aliens happened. They showed up in the room he was just in, the one Dr King was still in. Luther ran as fast as he could—very fast, you know—back inside, but by the time he got in there, Dr King wasn't alive. Imagine, all that intellectual potential…and Luther didn't feel as bothered by it as he most likely should have. The alien started to charge up before Luther ran out of the room as quickly as he could.

When he turned the corner, the security guard was waiting for him. Over the loud, annoying, completely uncalled for, but harmless window clawing the aliens were doing, the security guard motioned Luther over. His ID card read Arthur Dickinson, 37, high access.

"There's a spare suit in here, and if you're lucky some weapons. Go ahead and take them, I honestly sincerely doubt that Black Mesa will need them now." To prove his point, he raised his CB radio volume, drowning out their conversations with screams, gunfire, and panicked speech, of varying ages. As though Luther needed to hear it right then.

The room, for lack of any other use, seemed to be there just in case this one event ever happened, all the boxes seemed to not have been opened since at least the nineties. In the very back was an open box with not one, as Dickinson implied, but three orange H.E.V. suits, mark IV. He took one and pulled the guard over to another. "Go ahead, Arthur, you'll need it if you want to get out of here alive."

On the floor next to the box was a crowbar, overly shiny and with a red handle but otherwise unremarkable. Inside the other boxes, open after Luther swung the crowbar like an axe at them, a very fun thing to do that you should most definitely try, was magazines of handgun ammo, which Luther shared with the guard. Except for one box. In it was a cache of handguns, nine millimeter, .38 special revolvers, you name it.

He took a Glock pistol, and gave Dickinson two revolvers. "Right," he said, "we'd better get going. We at least have a chance of getting out if we leave."

Luther broke a weak glass pane in the broken door Dickinson was standing in front of, and taking advantage of their new-found metal suits, crawled through. They emerged, Luther crowbar and Arthur revolvers in hands, to find another of those brown aliens teleporting in.

* * *

 _Bang, bang._

One single brown alien dead on arrival. He had to admire Arthur's quick reaction, wondering what must have happened for him to react so quickly. Probably a war? He was old enough to have fought in the Gulf wars, most definitely.

 _Bang, bang._

The cafeteria that the key was sitting in was weird, weirder than he was. Pound sterling prices? Seemingly future predicting posters? Even worse, pixelated ones that looked like they were drawn by an eight year old?! The key took his mind off the illogical room and he forgot soon after about the mental strain of the posters.

Honestly, the aliens by now are getting annoying. Almost as annoying(ly loud) as these metal grates. Somehow the idea of prying them off didn't occur to him, so he simply broke them in.

He wiggled his way through the conveniently large vent, only to fall after a few inches into an elevator shaft. Not only that, but on the roof of an elevator car. Arthur followed suit, and they dropped down into the elevator, guns ready.


	2. Electric Keys

Luther and Arthur's guns didn't fire, there wasn't anything to fire at. Keeping them up, Luther made his way over to the door to open it with the button on the wall. To his eternal gratitude, it worked and the two were able to leave the elevator car to a sterile white hallway without a trace of dirt or dust on them, as though they had been cleaned just that day.

What a thought—despite the horrible end of the Black Mesa Research Facility, someone still had to clean the clean rooms.

And what a beast.

In front of him was a humanoid creature in a lab coat, with a bulbous, shiny head and a thoughtless, shambling gait. While on most days he would have mistaken this creature for a Greenpeace apologist, based on the other creatures he saw this was probably just an alien. Arguably less lethal, and more tolerable to be around. If only they didn't swing their two foot long claws at you, they would be great.

But it was swinging at him. No problem, he would just shoot it down. All his problems are solved. For the moment. But he did see a particularly valuable asset on the ground, a thick black mass.

A thick black mass with a pump that he picked up and handed to Arthur.

* * *

After a few minutes of getting lost, they stumbled across a scientist, who introduced himself as Gerald Lee. Lee took them over to a room they already were, with a relieved look in his face. The door to a subroom they hadn't seen was jammed with a crowbar, which Luther kicked in. The door closed then opened again, locking into place, and allowing Arthur to go inside and activate the retinal scanner. Meanwhile, Luther stayed out and got information from Lee.

"So, we're leaving this place. Do you have any idea of where to go?"

"I know of a shortcut, and unless it's caved in, it should be fairly close. It's a bit of a walk but it'll save a few days of getting lost."

Luther scratched the back of his head and thought about it for a minute. Luckily, he didn't have to respond because Arthur walked back from the security room with a box of shotgun shells in hand. He pumped the gun, a shell fell out, and he reloaded the magazine with a mix of the new shells and the one that was already in the magazine, filling the gun to nine rounds—eight in the magazine, one in the chamber.

The door opened about a second later, into a turbine room being powered by glowstick fluid. Either that or concentrated radium, because neither Luther nor Gerald could identify the luminescent, lime green sludge sliding around on the floor. They traversed the room and left as quickly as possible, but found more on their way.

It was ten minutes later that they found themselves in a lobby room flooded with aliens. Arthur used some of his buckshot, while Luther held two handguns in his hands, nearly getting shot with electricity in return because of his worse aim and higher reaction time.

There was another scientist on the catwalk, but he was cut into by the claws of a brown monster. Still alive, but in bad condition. He would never make it. Lee called to him, "Where are we?" and the scientist took a minute to get his breath.

"Near the aqueous biology labs. You'll have to get all the way to terrestrial biology to get out of here."

And he died.

At least it was quick. Arthur went forward, Luther went to the left, and Gerald to the right, and it was the latter that found the way up. Gerald checked the pulse and breathing of the scientist. Nothing. Stumbling through the corridor, he came face to face with a brown alien. While he wouldn't have been as startled if he had some form of defence, he was defenceless then so jumped and ran as quickly as possible. He looked back and saw the alien charging up, and had only one option—the catwalk was metal.

He jumped. He was pretty sure he broke one of his legs, but he was safe.

So he thought. The brown alien wasn't that dumb, and clearly saw him jumping down. So, like any rational being, he followed him, and shot.

The electricity seemed almost like it was burning, but at the same time didn't seem to kill him. But, he was close to death. The alien started again but he crawled out of the way before it could get a clear shot on him.

Luther was the first to return, noticing the brown alien already charged. It seems he'd be one of the first to experience it and live the tale. Luther raised his gun, which acted like a lightning rod, the electricity jumping around his suit and exiting to the ground. While the rubber soles didn't do anything to protect him from the electric charge, the suit itself, counterintuitively, was designed to do so (despite being made of steel and titanium).

Three rounds of lead did more than ten bolts could, and the alien fell back. Gerald made his way up, and Luther helped him the rest of the way. Arthur made his way back just a minute later.

"What happened?" he asked as soon as he stopped, just inches in front of the others.

"A brown alien," they both replied in unison. Luther motioned for them to wait, and went over to the elevator, ready to find out what else was up there.

As it turned out, nothing.

Nothing but a flooded lower level.

* * *

" _Found something, I'm going to investigate!_ " Luther yelled out to the others. First, he checked a door beside him that wasn't flooded. Thankfully, it worked, but the room was flooded with aliens that looked a bit like the head of the humanoid alien. Actually, exactly like one. Seemingly, they were one and the same, and dead too, since he drew and fired without thinking. Deciding to smash some boxes to see if there were any supplies, Luther's thinking worked out and rewarded him with three boxes of shells, first aid kits, and handgun magazines, the first two of which he threw over the catwalk and onto the ground below, and the last he kept.

Which brought him to his handguns. They were two models self-identifying as Glock Eighteens, with fire selectors on the right hand side of the gun. It was set to automatic.

And did he ever need it.

Among the ever growing repertoire of weird things that should not exist was a giant cross between a shark, a fish, and the colours of a bag of garbage. The sharp teeth, of which there were many, cut through the water just slightly.

Then it spotted him as he was swimming past. Luther tried swimming faster but he couldn't move his arms much faster than he was already. The fish was a bit faster. For lack of better option, he drew out the fish, before maneouvring behind it and trying to shoot at it with both pistols, despite how ridiculous that would be.

It worked.

The monster was riddled with bullets. As much as he would have loved to bring it to the biology department (although it seemed to be doing that by itself just fine for him), if it was about to eat him, he would have no complaints. Besides, biology wasn't his field anyway. That these creatures didn't decide to live by not attacking him was the only thing he really knew about them. Although he could at least understand the predicament of the brown creatures, the fish was not justifiable.

Are cheetahs justifiable though, on that train of logic?

That kept him busy until he reached a locked door, after which he realised he should have probably checked to see if there were any alternate ways out. All the doors were locked, except one, which was flooded and wide open.

Nothing.

The room was nearly empty, just some waterlogged books in a bookcase and a desk bolted to the ground. The water just barely didn't make it over the grate, but it was close. So, going off prior muscle memory, Luther broke open the vent, crawled inside, and passed through into another room.

Directly in front of a fellow scientist.

"Why are you even here? The door is locked, and this water can't have filled this whole basement complex in the, what, 20 minutes since the incident? Besides, can't you just climb out of the vent like I did?"

The scientist just looked forward with a sour expression. Not the kind of being offended, but the one of hearing someone say something he'd never thought of before that would have made far more sense than the option actually picked.

"With that shark creature out there, I would have been a fool to go outside!"

Luther brandished his two handguns. "Problem solved," he said wishing he had a pair of sunglasses to put on as he did so. He simply resorted to fidgeting with the fire selector instead.

The scientist—Dr Lindbergh, going off the plate on the desk—rolled his eyes so hard his head rolled with them. "I'm sure that looked far better in your head."

Luther just shook his, took the keycard from his table, and told him to follow, which he did for lack of better option.

So with him he went, back to the big room to try each door. The obvious one to check, and the one they did, was the door with the keycard slot, which luckily was indeed the door that they needed to go through. A monsterman stood there for a few seconds before falling to buckshot. A group of scientists stood behind a door before being united with their distant colleagues. Corridors. The walk to the end door was tense and exciting, but the door meant an anticlimactic end.

* * *

A side room seemed promising, if for no other reason than the ludicrous amount of monsters infesting it. If there were nothing in there, it would be disappointing at best.

Luther and Arthur ripped through the threat, reloading after each monster was downed, and retrieved another blue key card. The cavalcade of researchers stepped back in case there were any problems in front of them, which thankfully there wasn't. But they kept on high alert. A scientist went off on his own and returned to the party a few minutes later, with a gun in hand.

This pattern—finding a locked door, looking for a keycard in a separate room, and returning—continued a very long time. The next occurrence happened only a few minutes later, when another blast door like the previous seemed to be broken. The room beside them had a light on, so they checked it out, finger on triggers before they fully entered the room.

 _Bang, bang, dead. It was getting a little old._ Arthur looked down to his shotgun while Luther examined the room for any items that could be useful. The shotgun was a beautiful thing to him, black and menacing just how he liked his guns.

There was a scientist on top of a machine. What he was doing there Luther will never know, but he was indeed there. "Is the door over there broken?" he asked, prone on top of what appeared to be a 1950s vacuum tube computer.

"Might be, but it could just be locked. The keypad is sparking." It was Arthur who spoke up, having been contented with the loot in the room.

"I've got a keycard up here. I would toss it down but I don't know if it'll fall in a hole, and I would just walk down but my legs are gone, so I've reserved myself to helping out my coworker here."

Luther nodded, grabbed a barrel, and climbed on the machine. True to his words, the scientist had only one leg, and it appeared to be broken. He had no hope.

The coworker wasn't as badly damaged, but he appeared to be unconscious and bleeding. Luther put on a bandage, and took the keycard, jumping off the computer and leaving to enter the next room.


End file.
